Peter Foley, 2016 Artist

Peter Foley is an artist who works in a variety of media. By studying sign processes, signification and communication, he presents everyday objects as well as references to texts, painting and architecture. Pompous writings and Utopian constructivist designs are juxtaposed with trivial objects. Categories are subtly reversed. His artworks feature coincidental, accidental and unexpected connections which make it possible to revise art history and, even better, to complement it.
Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies. By experimenting with aleatoric processes, he makes work that generates diverse meanings. Associations and meanings collide. Space becomes time and language becomes image. With the use of appropriated materials which are borrowed from a day-to-day context, he formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious process of composition that is behind the seemingly random works.

The thought processes, which are supposedly private, highly subjective and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds, are frequently revealed as assemblages. His works question the conditions of appearance of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images, representations and ideas normally function. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, he wants to amplify the astonishment of the spectator by creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images that leave traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation.

He currently lives and works in San Francisco, Lisbon and Escazu,Costa Rica.